


half a pair of bones

by TolkienGirl



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Genre: Angst, Basically Ben is the angstiest angster to ever angst, F/M, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and the only way he knows how to connect with people is killing them, identity crisis, title from a beautiful poem by @madamescarlette on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 19:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13278621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: He hides from his own rage and is silent.





	half a pair of bones

He thinks this is what it is like to be alone, only—

He has thought that so many times before.

 

Snoke is gone. It was a brutal, satisfying thing. He killed Snoke the way Snoke would have had him kill his uncle, betrayal at the edge of loyalty.

(That is not the way he killed his father.)

 

Shreds and whispers and an ending that felt so very small. That is the Darth Vader of his childhood. His mother would not say much, and Luke would not explain much.

Mystery breeds dreams, and fear breeds ambition, and sometimes there is hollowness inside a child’s heart for both.

 

He kneels on Crait—the air stings like blood here—and he feels foolish. The simplicity of it, of his uncle’s final words, of everything that lived in Ben Solo, is what he has tried so very long and hard to escape.

Rey has a simple face and endless eyes.

He knew she’d never come with him.

He’d hoped—

But hope is for the good, and for the dead, and he is neither.

Never again, and not yet.

 

Killing his father was the easiest thing he ever did. An ending, that felt so very small—if the ending and the ease were confined to the time and weight of his gloved hand against the blade.

As a child, learning to fly, death had never been far away. And Han Solo, pilot and vagabond, was always meant to fall.

(Not like this.)

(Easiest thing he ever did.)

 

The mask that is Kylo Ren and the corpse that is Ben Solo and the nameless face beneath too many scars sit hunched in the bay of an Imperial ship, folded small, knee almost to chin, as he used to sit when he was younger, or still young.

Maybe he is still young. He keeps away intruders with his mind, and tells himself that _alone_ is a choice and _loneliness_ must be too.

Rey is with his mother. They both survived. No thanks to him.

He hides from his own rage and is silent.

 

 _The Jedi_ , he remembers Luke saying, _deny themselves pleasure to train themselves for pain_.

 _I hate you_ , he hears his mother’s voice, but there is laughter in it, and she buries ( _buried_ , it is all so long ago) her face against Han’s jacket.

 _Ben._ Rey’s face is simple, and open like a flower, and he disappointed her every hope and far-flung belief.

(Easiest thing he ever did.)

 

At night, he can shed his rage and grief like so much shrapnel and scrap, and find Rey as man finds woman in every world but his waking one. Rey is sharp angles and soft lips and her hands are warm in his.

At night, he is only half himself. Or less than half.

 

Order after order after order, _hunt them down_ , and _kill them all_ —as though that can banish chaos.

As though, in the end, that is what he _wants._

(It’s the easy way out.)


End file.
